BY KENYATTA OTIENO
There is a trend where in April, August and part of November when schools are closed traffic jams ease considerably in Nairobi. The irony is out of familiarity; we take it as normal. During school holidays Nairobi roads are clear, you are left wondering what school children do to us or rather what we do around schools when they are in session.
First a majority of Nairobi’s commuting population, for lack of reliable public transport, opts for personal cars, which lead to congestion. Kenya has over two million cars and a good percentage, may be up to 50% operate in or through Nairobi. Last April I believe it went to another level, for the whole month the notorious Mombasa Road coming into town was flowing. The other roads were also doing well, a friend told me he made it to town from Rongai in half an hour during rush hours. Did City Hall see his?
In a recent survey in major cities of the world, Russia’s capital Moscow leads the top ten congested cities in the world. In Moscow you will take 68 minutes in rush hour to cover a distance that takes 30 minutes. Istanbul follows at 60 minutes. At number nine is Beijing at 53 minutes, which comes just before Brussels also at 53 minutes. Seven of the top ten cities in the index have populations of over ten million people and Brussels comes in at the bottom with 2.1 million inhabitants. Nairobi is not far away behind Brussels.
Traffic jam leads to loss of man-hours. It is estimated that Nairobi, the capital of the fifth largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa loses up to $500, 000 (Sh50m) a day in traffic jam. Traffic jams are driving emotions of Nairobians up the edge while sucking up energy that people could have used to do more productive work. Traffic is a complex issue that is a result of many factors to warrant a simplistic conclusion.
Kenyans are a peculiar lot, so such social trends cannot be taken at face value. We are the people of herd mentality. The signs of rains will push us all into the road to rush home causing terrible traffic jams. A small snarl up leads to overlapping causing several lanes on a single carriage road. We go out of town in droves over Easter and Christmas then come back in droves again. To justify the school fees my parents paid, I asked myself if reforms in City schools lead to less traffic jams.
The other peculiar act is traffic police controlling traffic near traffic lights. It was once reported that they threatened to go on a go-slow if they are prohibited from controlling traffic. The lights were put up at a cost, they also consume electricity but they are not put into use. The police officer at one point might think he is doing a good job but he ends up clogging another point down the line. What about re-programming the lights to suit current state of affairs?
Back to Schools
It seems that for most Nairobi residents, life revolves around children. They either all wake up early to drop their children to school and pick them in the afternoon or school busses are guilty for causing heavy traffic jams. To the economically endowed like my neighbour, may be many of them have an extra car that drops the children to school then takes them lunch and wait to pick them up in the afternoon.
The other area of interest to employers is the rate of production during school holidays. It seems people get to work faster and in good moods then they do not have to leave early to beat the jam. They can also hang out with friends before going home. In the end, their production could be higher during school holidays. The only catch is the headache of enough food and activities to keep the children occupied and required school fees at the beginning of the next term.
If roads can be clear during school holidays, then it means that schools support a significant volume of business in this city. This is another thing that needs deeper analysis because for roads to clear up just because schools are closed there is a story behind it. Taxis are sent to pick up children when parents are held up, schools must prepare meals, suppliers deliver goods to schools, all this in a complex system that pushes vehicles into city roads.
I once proposed in a discussion that the County Government should collect aerial data of traffic flow to capture the minute-by-minute buildup of traffic. Someone shot back that we have people who have written masters and PhD thesis on the same. There is no need of reinventing the wheel. We have enough expertise to sort out this mess. The County Government tried a series of changes on our roundabouts a while ago, which backfired except at Westlands and Tom Mboya Avenue roundabouts.
I believe that reform in the education sector will have a big effect on traffic. One such reform is to upgrade public schools to even out the quality of education. This will encourage parents to send their children to schools next door, where they can walk. It will also reduce the number of school busses crisscrossing the city and ease off pressure from parents.
The other option is to stagger school time a little so as not to correspond with working hours. Children are always out in busses as early as 6:00am; classes can begin at 7:00am and end early. Or rework the curriculum and mode of teaching so that teachers can teach less for more. If we look at our education sector keenly, then we can solve half the problems with our traffic.
The other solutions involving planning and rapid transport systems are best looked at by experts. If we cannot manage a city with a population of about three million people, future projections paint a gloomy picture. Nairobi is growing and soon the city will be at a standstill for more hours than it will be moving. The devil might be hiding behind our schools.
